Youre almost there…next step: maybe there is no god at all, and religions are bullshit.
Keep peeling back the layers Gregory.

Youre almost there…next step: maybe there is no god at all, and religions are bullshit.
Keep peeling back the layers Gregory. — DingoJones

Even those who believe they have a demonstration of God's existence (however that looks) will talk about "faith in God". I admit the whole thing from top to bottom is about faith. The one thing is though that all religions speak of an afterlife and to cultivate some spirituality in order to be open to another life seems to require at least a little faith

Whatever is real does not require suspending disbelief (i.e. "faith"), only fantasies, fairytales, lies do.

Fantasies like the infallibility of human perception?

Believing in "god" without believing in religion is possible indeed. One could come to the conclusion that this extremely huge(which is an understatement) universe came into being on it's own is not very likely, yet simultaneously believe that religion is bs as it was probably created to control the masses and give people something to look up to.
Who that "god" who created us could be, if you believe so, is another matter altogether. It could be a very powerful being, or it could be a school kid of a highly advanced civilization just doing his school project which ended up creating our universe.

According to the religious, God is not to be found in time and space. All matter is found in time and in space, this is what is meant by the term exists, thus, God does not exists.

Kant seemed to believe what you say as well but held to *faith* in God (and immortality). Some things are pure faith, but all reason seems to have some faith involved. Did aliens abduct everyone last night and so now I live with only aliens? Reason can't disprove this but it's not rational to believe this happens. There is always a paradox in knowledge and the chose to be rational will always require common sense and what looks like faith. As Hegel says, all knowledge can always be sublated to something else until you reach the perfect form of knowledge itself

-"So let's suppose there is a God."
-Why is this necessary or part of a philosophical discussion?

Because God and immortality are among the biggest philosophical questions there is and so the implications of those ideas are important.

I don't see how philosophy means anything or is anything but stifling without a desire for an afterlife. "God" is a concept we use for the virtue of hope and is more than a concept by which we measure our pain. There is reason and faith in most thinking and ideas of pure faith are the best.

I don't understand the human side of these speculations. If there is a god who is interested in what I do and think, then that is an important part of my experience. And if that is the case, I do not care about what could be said or not by this and that criteria outside of my relationship.

The entire notion is based upon whether something is going on or not for some people. It is meaningless outside of that context.

My point was even if we believe in God we can't prove he wants us to be religious. But proof is not needed for faith. It seems to me that those who try to prove God's existence are the weaker in faith. Something will knock down their argument someday.

What do you make of St. Anselm? He was not interested in replacing faith with reason. Nor vice versa.

The ontological argument requires some faith. I see Anslem's argument as a meditation tool

Anselm brought in the idea of what can be imagined and what were the conditions of such an activity. It was not a work of mysticism like others of that sort.

The ontological argument is a sham unless seen as mysticism

It all depends on how you set about in thinking about God. As you point out, we have the usual all powerful all knowing arguments, which don't make any sense, that is if we apply that idea of God to the world we live in. So there's no reason for belief.

I know there are others here who really know Mainländer really well, they can read the original text in German.

I tend to like his idea, of a metaphorical God a "being" that created the universe. I like the idea of a "simple substance", the most elemental thing we could think, which proceeded to expand into the universe we now know. How can we think of a "simple substance" or "simple being" or the simplest possible state of existence? Perhaps the singularity is what it could be, or something even more simple.

Then we can use the metaphoric name God, to whatever it is that "caused", "began" or whatever word one wants to use, the universe. But it wouldn't have any moral properties.

So, absent religious people talking about God, I don't see how to proceed here.

The ontological argument is a sham unless seen as mysticism — Gregory

One of the appeals to reason in the argument is that we could not have had a notion of the divine unless we were infected by the notion at some point. That strikes me as a very unmysitcal thing to say. We try to take inventory of our ideas and this very strange one shows up.

Rightly or wrongly, the idea is presented as an interloper, something that is not self evident.

The sun exists. My belief in it is irrelevant; it existed prior to me and will continue on after me, and it cares not one whit about my belief in it. I would make similar claims for God.

I really can't see how claims on superstition (god)and wishful thinking/death denying ideologies qualify as philosophy.
Only from a Chronicling point of view these ideas were part of philosophy.So was Phlogiston and Miasma etc part of science in the past but we no longer accept them as serious scientific questions.
I can only see those concepts to be relevant in Anthropology and Psychology not in Philosophy.

-"I don't see how philosophy means anything or is anything but stifling without a desire for an afterlife."
-Again that is wishful thought and superstition, not philosophy. Philosophy deals with the production of wise claims based on actual knowledge. There is nothing wise on those claims and we have zero epistemology supportive of them. Again it's a subject that can help us understand the psyche of human beings and how environmental conditions affect religiosity but begging the question fallacies like assuming the existence of deities can not really provide meaningful answers to those "important questions'.

"God" is a concept we use for the virtue of hope and is more than a concept by which we measure our pain."
-I can fully agree with this statement. This is why I classified this topic as part of a psychological or anthropological discuss. Technically speaking science is philosophy so you may be right.


"There is reason and faith in most thinking and ideas of pure faith are the best".
-in providing hope? Again I will agree.

So I think my questions about religious belief and actions are fair: why act religiously when there is no evidence God is listening in the sense you might think he does. — Gregory

I’m going to confess I am a believer in God but I won’t argue about whether he is real or not.

But I will say this religion is like studying anthropology.

You need to understand it goes deeper than asking if God is real or not.

Is about culture, emotional expression, art and human history.

You also have to acknowledge it was a form of structural order for a culture that didn’t have kingdoms and governments, there were only tribes.

The question of is “God Real”? Undermine many valuable attributes that I mentioned before.

Sometimes you have to go past the question “Is God Real” and analyze the content itself.

Also, if your not familiar to the type of religion you are criticizing how do you know you are not making a bias claim?

Is like me as a Christian criticizing Buddhism and I never studied there practice. It would not be a fair assessment to the Buddhist faith, I would be making a subjective opinion based on very little experience on the topic.

Or a Muslim criticizing Bushido.

To answer the question of religion you need to study the content and cross reference it to philosophy.

Like study Existential philosophy teachings of Søren Kierkegaard and compared it to the book of Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Job in the Bible.

And where the teachings diverge or become similar to each other.

Only then you can provide a fair analytical answer to the question.

But I haven’t met many Philosophers who is willing to study the teachings of both religion and compare it to philosophy since it would challenge the individuals convictions.

You would have to have a dualist mind set to pursue this.

So let's suppose there is a God. Questions naturally arise about what kind of a God he or she is. — Gregory

I get it, but think you run off the rails rather quickly. You assume god and then question what you assumed. The attributes of your assumption are up to you.

The study of god is not unlike any other inquiry - it is steeped entirely in language, which is a wholly human construct (or at least is the construct of whatever inter subjective group you think is making the inquiry). When you ask about god, what you are really asking about is yourself. Being able to see god talk as fundamentally about our abstractions rather than something “out there” is a useful way to reconcile that we regularly talk about the ineffable.

But I haven’t met many Philosophers who is willing to study the teachings of both religion and compare it to philosophy since it would challenge the individuals convictions. — TheQuestion

I use to be Christian and I know their theology quite well. My personal stance is that God is immanent in us and hardly distinguishable from us. I find Hegel's mysticism very well thought out. Religion is about faith and you can't prove a religion based on alleged interventions by divinity. I don't believe any of these have happened because God is not "out there" in my opinion and did not create the world. Reason can point to mysticism but can never grasp it. Basing belief on miracles is a whole different approach than mysticism though. However, you have a point that fits in well here: it's about culture, art, and archetypes at that point. For a person, their culture is their truth in a way, and even Hegel himself said this. I think I am permanently in the camp of German idealist (although I am not Germans), for whatever reason this has happened.

The study of god is not unlike any other inquiry - it is steeped entirely in language, which is a wholly human construct (or at least is the construct of whatever inter subjective group you think is making the inquiry). When you ask about god, what you are really asking about is yourself. Being able to see god talk as fundamentally about our abstractions rather than something “out there” is a useful way to reconcile that we regularly talk about the ineffable — Ennui Elucidator

Very good points

As an antitheist (inspired by Via Negativa), I claim that whatever is said "about God" is not true – theism is not true (type), therefore Abrahamic, Greco-Roman, Vedic, shamanic deities, etc are imaginary (tokens) – and "religions" (i.e. "revealed" attributions of "God") are nothing but superstitions, or false hopes ritually pacifying false fears. 'Deus, sive natura' – sans sub specie aeternitatis, pandeism (i.e. finite unbounded immanence) – grounds my speculative inquiries (re: the real).

I use to be Christian and I know their theology quite well. — Gregory

What was your turning point was it to much awareness or was it circumstantial?

What was your turning point was it to much awareness or was it circumstantial? — TheQuestion

Thanks for the question. I was raised Catholic, served at the Latin mass and all that, but my consciousness changed a lot from 17-19 and one day I realized I had believed only in wishes instead of something I had evidence for. Religion is something that is on my mind a lot though, which is why I post about it

As an antitheist (inspired by Via Negativa), I claim that whatever is said "about God" is not true – theism is not true (type), therefore Abrahamic, Greco-Roman, Vedic, shamanic deities, etc are imaginary (tokens) – and "religions" (i.e. "revealed" attributions of "God") are nothing but superstitions, or false hopes ritually pacifying false fears. 'Deus, sive natura' – sans sub specie aeternitatis, pandeism (i.e. finite unbounded immanence) grounds my speculative inquiries (re: the real). — 180 Proof

Yep

Thanks for the question. I was raised Catholic, served at the Latin mass and all that, but my consciousness changed a lot from 17-19 and one day I realized I had believed only in wishes instead of something I had evidence for. Religion is something that is on my mind a lot though, which is why I post about it — Gregory

I hope I am not intruding, I try to respect everyone's views and opinions here.

I want to ask is it "skepticism" or "doubt"? Because there is a difference between the two. I see many who post here getting the two confused and I wonder if anyone understand the two dynamics.

"Doubt" is more subjective, based on personal experience and emotional perspective. A sort of discouraging point of view.

Where as being "skeptic" is more of a analytical tool to understand something. Based on information or insufficient information but your willing to accept as truth if more evidence is presented.

Skepticism is like a logical tool, for example in physics. Is used to solve advanced mathematical equations and to explore options to over come obstacles.

Is a strategy often used in debates to not just win arguments but to investigate and learn.

But "Faith" and "Doubt" are like night and day. Is one of many forms of Emotional Intelligence, a way we use emotion to interpret our reality. Without emotion there would be no "cognitive" in the mind, we would be like objects. Without emotion we would not see reality. Is a core element in how we perceived the world?

"I feel there for I exist."

Like I said in previous post "How does this information make you feel?" is a question design to bring awareness to your own conscious state. And to bring an understanding that the information you are processing is not just data is emotion too.

So ask again to anyone out there. Is it "Skepticism" or "Doubt"?

I want to ask is it "skepticism" or "doubt"?

So ask again to anyone out there. Is it "Skepticism" or "Doubt"? — TheQuestion

What "it" are you referring to?

:chin: "Skepticism or doubt?" – false dichotomy; in philosophy, skepticism is the methodological application of doubt. Like belief and disbelief, it is usually more rational than irrational to doubt (i.e. suspend judgment believing or disbelieving) some statement when there are grounds (for doubt specifically such as insufficient evidence, incoherent assumptions, inconsistent predicates, vagueness, and/or lack of specific context / relevance) to do so. A doubt, in other words, is a(n implicit) question of a statement's truth-value in the absence of a truth-maker and, when warranted by grounds, is a public epistemic stance rather than merely a "subjective" or "emotional" disposition.

_ "I feel there for I exist." _

Even more so: I feel, therefore more-than-I-exists. :mask: